


come on and wait another year

by everytuesday



Series: riverswap [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Pining, kind of? it's a jarchie/beronica roleswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24212437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everytuesday/pseuds/everytuesday
Summary: She was looking for the boy next door. Instead she found me.(in which Betty Smith is a brooding writer from the wrong side of the tracks and Veronica Andrews is Riverdale's golden girl)
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge
Series: riverswap [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747600
Comments: 15
Kudos: 61
Collections: riverswap





	come on and wait another year

**Author's Note:**

> this au is a whole thing that came into being over a series of very very long discord conversations with [ tibby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladystark/pseuds/ladystark) and then expanded into [ a tumblr sideblog](https://riverswap.tumblr.com) and I _finally_ got around to writing actual fic for it. more details there (or in the end notes).
> 
> title is from "Wild Heart" by Bleachers which is on [this fantastic playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3v035PcQvFMUJxEgzpzYan?si=kz8_rOpwTNmaTHqcHPnVqg) for roleswap Beronica

_ Our story is about a town, a small town. And the people who live in the town. _

Betty is sitting in her usual corner at Pop’s, the clacking of keys only interrupted by quick sips of Pop’s scalding coffee burning down her throat. It’s a good burn, one that makes her feel grateful for the perpetual availableness of Pop’s. She always suspected the diner was the one reliable thing in town, and this summer had gone out of its way to prove her right.

Jason Blossom’s apparent death was the headliner, naturally. Though it’s barely on her radar among her own personal troubles, she doesn’t envy the Blossoms. Kevin and Jason were practically twins, despite being stepbrothers, and with Kevin being the last person to see Jason alive, she can’t imagine the guilt. She’s trying to wrap her head around it, as she writes, but her mind wanders.

For her, July had been characterized by another blow-out fight between her parents. She’s not sure what happened, neither of them bothered to tell her, but Alice packed bags and FP slouched off to the White Wyrm, at which point Betty elected to make herself scarce from the trailer for the foreseeable future.

Alice hadn’t even tried to get Betty to come with her, which is new. Usually they at least put on a show of having a fight over it before Betty goes to stay at the Andrews’ house for a few days under the guise of an extended sleepover.

Also new is the fact that the Andrews aren’t an option this time. She and Veronica had planned a roadtrip over the fourth of July weekend, only for Ronnie to abandon her without so much as a text of explanation. They had an ensuing blow-out fight of their own and they hadn’t spoken since.

It’s been a theme. If Jughead’s vaguely worded text to her is any indication, as of an hour ago, he and Veronica are fighting too. Jughead would probably offer her a place to stay, if she asked, but that would involve interacting with Hal -- his stepdad, her  _ actual  _ dad; fuck her family for going out of their way to be so obnoxiously complicated -- and she’ll do that over her dead body. That dwindles her options down to just Pop’s, and thankfully Pop Tate never gives her a bad time about using the booth for hours while she never spends more than the $1.50 for a black coffee. She suspects he’d let her stay even if she didn’t order anything, but she’s never put it to the test and she likes their current arrangement that allows her some semblance of pride.

The bell on the door chimes as it opens and Betty glances up from her computer screen automatically, and then wishes she hadn’t. It’s Veronica.

Betty debates trying to look away and avoid eye contact, but before she can make up her mind Veronica looks her way, their eyes lock, and Betty knows they’re going to have to  _ talk _ .

Veronica approaches Pop Tate at the register first, asking about Jughead. When he shakes his head, she turns and slowly makes her way across the diner toward her, while Betty runs through a series of potential responses. Some cruel, some forgiving. One a thoroughly humiliating declaration of love. Before she can make up her mind, Veronica is standing directly in front of the booth, and Betty remembers the back-to-school dance was earlier tonight because Veronica is wearing a sequined black dress and her hair is meticulously curled. She looks beautiful, but then, Betty thinks she’s always beautiful.

“Can I sit?” she asks.

“Of course,” Betty says, and then mentally kicks herself for forgetting that they’re supposed to be fighting and not being meaner about it.

The way Veronica’s eyes light up relief is almost worth it, though.

“What are you working on?” she asks, nodding to the laptop as she sits down across from Betty.

“A story. A novel, I think?” Words have just sort of been spilling out onto the page and she’s not sure that it’ll be worth anything when it’s done, but she wants it to be good. Wants it to mean something. “It’s about everything that happened this summer. Jason, mostly.”

Veronica gets a strange, sad look in her eye, “He was only seventeen, Bets.”

Betty looks back down at the screen a moment, finding Jason’s name in the jumble of words on the page and frowning at it, how small and insignificant the single word is. And yet somehow that’s all that’s left of him now, just words and images.

“I just wonder,” Veronica says, breaking through Betty’s thoughts, “if he was doing everything he was meant to be doing. If he was doing what he wanted or if he even knew what that was.”

Betty doesn’t have a good answer for that, but she’s not sure there is one. Jason was seventeen and now Jason is dead and the fact that he died young will probably eclipse anything he actually  _ did _ in life. She’s not sure most seventeen year olds have done anything worthy of memory, it’s all just grades and sports and dance recitals. But maybe that’s the whole point of being seventeen.

“Coach Clayton was in here earlier, talking to Pop,” she says. “Varsity? What’s it like being Miss Popular Softball Goddess now?”

“I’m definitely not that,” Veronica says. “I think I just lost my best friend.”

That ship had sailed, if she was talking about Betty. But she isn’t. Veronica Andrews doesn’t get sad puppy eyes over her anymore, which means… “If you’re referring to Jug, I don’t know what terrible, inevitable crash-and-burn you two had, but we Jones kids can be pretty understandable if you just  _ talk  _ to us. It would’ve gone a long way with me, anyway.”

Veronica doesn’t take the bait. She gives a small sigh and eases herself up from the table, “Good luck with your book, Bets.”

She even sounds like she means it, which leads to a soft warmth settling in Betty’s chest as she watches Veronica head back out the door in search of Jughead. Betty turns her attention back to her laptop and starts typing.

_ Veronica Andrews was looking for the boy-next-door. Instead she found me. _

**Author's Note:**

> the basic premise of this au is that all the parents had a series of nasty divorces in 2001 and as a result all the kids grew up in different home situations, resulting in:  
> veronica andrews, raised by fred and hermione  
> archibald lodge, raised by hiram, along with hermosa  
> betty smith, raised by fp and alice  
> jughead wilkins, raised by gladys and hal, along with polly and jellybean  
> kevin blossom, raised by sawyer (we gave kevin's mom a name) and penelope, along with jason  
> cheryl samuels keller, raised by tom and sierra  
> reggie mantle, raised by melinda  
> josie mccoy, raised by myles


End file.
